The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Paperback)

Description

***PBS's AMERICAN EXPERIENCE released a film based on "The Poisoner's Handbook "in January 2014*** Equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, "The Poisoner's Handbook" is "a vicious, page-turning story that reads more like Raymond Chandler than Madame Curie" ("The New York Observer") A fascinating Jazz Age tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder, "The Poisoner's Handbook" is a page-turning account of a forgotten era. In early twentieth-century New York, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Science had no place in the Tammany Hall-controlled coroner's office, and corruption ran rampant. However, with the appointment of chief medical examiner Charles Norris in 1918, the poison game changed forever. Together with toxicologist Alexander Gettler, the duo set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work, triumphing over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice.

About the Author

DEBORAH BLUM is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and the author of five books, including The Poisoner's Handbook. She writes about environmental chemistry for The New York Times at Poison Pen and is a blogger for Wired at Elemental.

Praise For…

“The Poisoner’s Handbookbreathes deadly life into the Roaring Twenties.”—Financial Times

“The Poisoner’s Handbook is an inventive history that, like arsenic, mixed into blackberry pie, goes down with ease.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Deborah Blum has not lost the skills of good storytelling she honed as a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Reads like science fiction, complete with suspense, mystery and foolhardy guys in lab coats tipping test tubes of mysterious chemicals into their own mouths.” -- NPR: What We're Reading

“Fans of those TV forensic shows or of novels by Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs or Jefferson Bass will find plenty to satisfy their appetites here.” —The Washington Post

“Blum’s combination of chemistry and crime fiction creates a vicious, page-turning story that reads more like Raymond Chandler than Madame Curie.”—The New York Observer

“The Poisoner's Handbook opens one riveting murder case after another in this chronicle of Jazz Age chemical crimes where the real-life twists and turns are as startling as anything in fiction. Deborah Blum turns us all into forensic detectives by the end of this expertly written, dramatic page-turner that will transform the way you think about the power of science to threaten and save our lives.”—Matthew Pearl, author of The Technologists and The Dante Club